“Is not January the hardest month to get through? When you have weathered that, you get into the gulfstream of winter, nearer the shores of spring.”
–Henry David Thoreau, 1858
Hiroshige–“Snow Falling on a Town”
William Butler Yeats, famous Irish poet and playwright, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923, was 73 years old when he died on this day in 1939.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
You can read more poems by W.B. Yeats here.
Yes, Fat Baby Friday is back!
In honor of our mother’s b-day on the 19th, here is a picture of her in 1926, waving her arms excitedly. Hope this adorable, happy baby makes your day and caps off your week with a positive note!
As for a Friday movie pick, I suggest watching Nine to Five (1980), starring our other birthday girl, Dolly Parton.
This classic tale of three female employees turning the tables on their sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical boss is very just a little bit dated, but we love it anyway. It is the perfect movie to watch at the end of a stressful work week.
As you know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer shares a birthday with our mother and Dolly Parton, so it would likewise be appropriate to watch a few of those classic “Buffy-has-a-disastrous-birthday” episodes. And aren’t we always appropriate?
You might try:
“Surprise”/“Innocence” (Season 2)
“Helpless” (Season 3)
“A New Man” (Season 4)
“Blood Ties” (Season 5)
“Older and Far Away” (Season 6)
My personal favorite is season four’s “A New Man” wherein Ethan Rayne transforms Giles into a Fyarl demon, forcing him to go head-to-head with the Slayer. Remember when he chases that arrogant be-atch Prof. Walsh down the street?
It is a priceless episode and contains an abundance of great lines, including:
Professor Maggie Walsh: We thought you were a myth.
Buffy: Well, you were myth-taken
and several classic exchanges between Giles and Spike, like this one:
Giles: [Demon Giles] If you can’t find third gear, don’t try for third gear.
Spike: I’m doin’ my best. I don’t know if I’m drivin’ this thing or wearin’ it.
Giles: [Demon Giles] It’s perfectly serviceable.
Spike: [laughs] Funny hearing a Fyarl demon say “serviceable”. Had a couple of ’em working for me once. They’re more like, “Like to crush. Crush now?” Strong though. You won’t meet a jar you can’t open for the rest of your life.
[Giles growls menacingly]
Spike: [amused] What was that? Did you growl?
Giles: [primly] No.
So whether you choose to watch Buffy or Dolly or none/all of the above, have a great weekend!
circa 1972 or ’73 an eighth or ninth grader
Today, in honor of my dual personality’s birthday, I will share
“5 Things You May Not Know About My Dual Personality”*
1. She has a Ph.D from Yale University in Near Eastern Language and Literature. This is somewhat ironic, considering that most of her teachers growing up treated her as if she was a little slow. Typical.
2. She has been on archaeological digs in Jordan and Israel and Wales (and probably several places in between) and feels quite at home in a pith helmet.
3. She spent the day once with Gregory Peck’s son Stephen and she has met Viggo Mortensen. Who says the life of a college professor is dull?
4. She is an elder in her Presbyterian Church.
5. She took piano lessons as an adult and can now play the piano and read music!
Here’s hoping she receives presents today that delight her as much as this one! What was it I wonder?
P.S. That sweater vest with camel motif is really styling, man.
P.P.S. I spy with my little eye: a “bluenote” Blue’s hockey pin on her turtleneck. She was a diehard fan back in the day.
*This is a favorite blogger topic
The boy turns 27 today!
The above photo is one of my favorite pictures of the boy. He is about four. Funnily enough, it was taken by one of his Sunday School teachers. He is in the act of throwing an accurately decorated paper (jet) plane. Hmmm.
He hasn’t changed much really.
He shares a birthday with John Bunyan (1628), William Blake (1827) and Randy Newman (1943). Two of his illustrious ancestors died on this day: William Whipple, signer of the American Declaration of Independence, and the boy’s great-great-great grandfather John S. Hough.
The Episcopal Church celebrates this day as a feast day in honor of King Kamehameha and Queen Emma of Hawaii, who were good Episcopalians.
So hats off to the boy! We are looking forward to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with him and his lovely wife. Once again I will provide the cheesey potato casserole. And, of course, birthday presents for the birthday boy!
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender will be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
“A destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough; but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania, and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont over the proud coral cry of the cock, and the soft stone smile of an angel, is touched by that dark miracle of chance which makes new magic in a dusty world.
Each of us is all the sums he has not counted: subtract us into nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas.
The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern, because a London cutpurse went unhung. Each moment is the fruit of forty thousand years. The minute-winning days, like flies, buzz home to death, and every moment is a window on all time.
This is a moment.”
–Thomas Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938)
Look Homeward, Angel (1929)
I read this book a long, long time ago and this quote was in one of my earliest quote books. It reminds me a lot of William Faulkner and also Thornton Wilder. Both would have agreed with him.
(September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940)
I always felt kind of sorry for Fitzgerald. He had talent, but he also had a serious drinking problem and he married the wrong woman. That can be a deadly combination.
According to Wikipedia, Fitzgerald died at age 44 and was originally buried in Rockville Union Cemetery, an Anglican cemetery and the oldest burying ground in Rockville, Maryland. His daughter Scottie Smith worked to overturn the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s ruling that Fitzgerald had died a non-practicing Catholic, so that he could be buried at the Roman Catholic Saint Mary’s Cemetery where his father’s family was interred; this involved “re-Catholicizing” Fitzgerald after his death. His remains (and those of his Episcopalian wife Zelda) were moved to the family plot in Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland, in 1975.
Seriously?
“Oh, the poor son-of-a-bitch.”*
But I got a little side-tracked there. Here’s a quote:
“He did not understand all he had heard, but from his clandestine glimpse into the privacy of these two, with all the world that his short experience could conceive of at their feet, he had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited and Other Stories
*The Great Gatsby
Today is the second anniversary of our Dual Personalities blog! This is our 643rd post! Yay, us! Last year at this time we had 34 followers. Now we have 140! We are truly shrimps in the greater blogosphere, but we’re happy.
As you know, there is much in the modern post-modern world that drives me crazy, but I do like blogs. It is nice to know that Mrs. Blandings is out there in Kansas City and Amanda Blake Soule up in Maine. It is great to hear what’s up with Meg Frazier Fielding in Baltimore and Jenny Komenda out in Arizona. And of course I love to hear from daughter #1 in NYC and daughter #2 in Maryland. I do so look forward to hearing from all of them. So I hope we are not being immodest in thinking that we add our little light to the sum of light in the blog world.
It is daughter #1’s birthday today. I wish I could teleport to the Upper West Side and take her out to lunch. Sigh.
More than gems in my comb box
shaped by the God of the Sea,
I prize you, my daughter
–Otomo no Sakanoue Iratsume, eighth-century Japanese poet
Happy Birthday!
Peter Seamus Lorcan O’Toole (born 2 August 1932) is an Irish actor of stage and screen. His mother was Scottish.
My dual personality and I became big fans of his after seeing him in the re-release of Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in 1971. We saw it on a very hot day in the summer. During the intermission, following heroic trekking across the desert, our mother bought us sodas at the movie theater for the first time ever. It was a Big Day.
Peter O’Toole has made some good movies, but his career has largely been a disappointment to me. Like his Irish compatriot Richard Harris, he started out strong, but dissipated by drink, his career has been spotty. We can only wonder what might have been.
However, I like him in Lord Jim (1965) and in How to Steal a Million (1966)–he and Audrey Hepburn made a lovely and well-matched pair. And I will always have a soft spot in my heart for his portrayal of the angels in The Bible (1966)–a pretty terrible movie much enlivened by his presence.
This angel reminds me of…Lawrence of Arabia!
So let’s drink a toast to Peter O’Toole (preferably with something with ice) and watch some favorite scenes from Lawrence of Arabia. Hut, hut, huuuuuuuuut!
dual personalities 